 |
| |
|
 |
 |
 |
Official: India ready to bid for Games Posted: Sunday December 22, 2002 2:21 PMHYDERABAD, India (AP) -- Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Sunday said his country was ready to bid for the 2012 Olympics and that the southern city of Hyderabad could be a candidate to host the games. Far from being disheartened by India's inability to win any Olympic gold medals in two decades, Vajpayee said "the nation had made enough economic progress and was capable of hosting the Olympics." "I am confident things will change. The days ahead will be different," Vajpayee told a gathering of 30,000 spectators at the inauguration of national games in Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh state. He said he would consider an offer from Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, the state's top elected official, to make Hyderabad the venue for the Olympic games. The Indian Olympic Association has never bid to host the Olympics but has twice staged the Asian Games, including the first Asiad in 1951 and again in 1982. India bid to host the Commonwealth Games in 1990 and 1994, but lost out on both occasions. In April this year, the Indian government said it would ask its Olympic body to prepare to bid for the 2012 games. With Beijing hosting the 2008 Olympics, China will become only the third Asian nation to host the Summer Games. Japan has hosted both Summer and Winter Olympics and Seoul, the South Korean capital, hosted the 1988 Summer Games. On Sunday, Vajpayee regretted India's failure in the Olympics. "If a country of 1 billion people cannot win gold medals in Olympics, then we should realize that we have shortcomings and weaknesses," he said. India's last Olympic gold medal came in field hockey during the 1980 Games in Moscow. Its only recent medals were two bronzes clinched by tennis player Leander Paes in 1996 and women's weightlifter Karnam Malleswari in 2000.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
